BOSTON – Northern Kentucky men's basketball standout Marques Warrick is gaining national attention as the Lexington, Kentucky native was named to the Watch List for the 2022-23 Lou Henson National Player of the Year award, announced this week by CollegeInsider.com.
 
The Lou Henson National Player of the Year Award, which is presented annually to the top mid-major student-athlete in NCAA Division I basketball, honors the former Illinois and New Mexico State head coach who won 775 games in 41 seasons.
 
Through the first six games of the 2022-23 campaign, Warrick has led the Norse with an average of 17.7 points per game to go with averages of 2.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.0 steals per contest. He has scored at least 16 points in the past five NKU games, and is nationally ranked in points scored (106, 60th in NCAA DI basketball), made field goals (41, 30th), steals (12, 71st), and points per game (111th).
 
Warrick became just the 31st student-athlete in NKU program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau in the Norse's contest against Florida Gulf Coast on Monday. He accomplished the feat in just 61 games to become the fastest NCAA Division I student-athlete to join the 1,000-point club in school history.
 
The mid-major Player of the Year award is named after Henson who is the winningest coach in Illinois basketball history with 423 victories. During his 21 seasons (1975-1996), Henson led the Fighting Illini to 16 postseason appearances, including 12 NCAA tournaments and a Final Four appearance in 1989.
 
Henson, who is also the all-time winningest coach in New Mexico State history with 289 victories, is one of only 11 coaches to take two different schools to the NCAA Final Four. His teams have made 19 NCAA appearances and four NIT appearances.
 
Players on teams from the following conferences are eligible for the award: America East, ASUN, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, MEAC, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, SWAC, Summit, Sun Belt, West Coast.
 
The Lou Henson award committee is a 30-member panel, consisting of five current division I head coaches, five retired head coaches, 10 current athletic directors and/or conference administrators, five members of the national media and five collegeinsider.com staff members. 
 
 
 
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